BASYS: Baltic Sea System Study

The Baltic Sea System Study - BASYS project aims at reducing these uncertainties in a multidisciplinary project with 8 scientific subprojects.

Pelagic processes

Lateral transport

Nearshore processes

Atmospheric load

Climate impact

Environmental record in the sediments

Systems analysis and modelling

Mesoscale physics.

THE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF BASYS PROJECT:

The 3 major objectives of the project are:

to improve the quantification of past and present fluxes

to further the understanding of the susceptibility of the Baltic Sea to external forcing

to achieve a sound scientific basis for the understanding of future changes.

The work of BASYS encompasses retrospective aspects by studying the sedimentary record, long-term time series and hindcasting models as well process oriented studies on important system components like vertical and lateral fluxes, food web structure and their regulation by mesoscale physical phenomena.

The 4 major working tasks are:

assessment of time scales of significant changes and limits of complexity for prediction

translation of lateral and vertical gradients into mass balances

estimation of the sediment recording capacity in relation to lateral transpor and pelagic-benthic coupling

differentiation between natural and anthropogenic external forcing by understanding the preindustrial variability of the ecosystem.

The various subsystems of the Baltic Sea are highly variable in their biogeochemical behaviour. The field work cover representative site and results are upscaled to basin and larger scales by various model approaches. The combination between process oriented work, assembling of historical data, modelling and the geological record will allow for robust testing for predictive capability and for development of generic strategies in coastal ecosystem research. Coastal oceans in the highly dynamic boundary area between the terrestrial and oceanic realms are exposed to considerable external forcing by natural phenomena and human intervention. Particularly, semi-enclosed intra continental coastal seas with the reduced water renewal, such as the Baltic Sea, are most vulnerable to the human component. Due to the uncertainties in differentiating the impact of climate variability from anthropogenic disturbances the future reaction of coastal ecosystems to increased stress and to counter-measures is not predictable at present.